Super Glue My Heart Together

I hate this. I absolutely hate it. I want to curl up in a ball and cry like a child. I hate having to act grown up mature about it, knowing that life can suck sometimes and I only have so much control. I hate how my stomach hurts, I get headaches, and that I'm so easy to read when something is bothering me. I hate feeling every year as if I'm choosing one half of my family over the other half, that its like I'm ripping myself a new home. It's this terrible, unfulfilling cycle of back and forth. I'm so blessed with everything but on days like today, when I have to pack up and leave people again, I wish I didn't have to choose. I want to be selfish, I want to be spoiled, and I want to believe that I can have both halves of my family with me in the same place. It kills me that I know deep down that this isn't how life works, that people can't follow me forever, and that I need to accept things to move on.

Probably for the first time in my life, I don't know when I'll see the other half of my family again. It's always been easy to follow, not easy to execute, but easy to live with. I'd always spend the summers with my dad and every other Christmas. After I leave tomorrow, I won't have a definite date of when I'll return to my other home. I don't like this. I hate this feeling of the unknown about something I've always known. I've always been able to cope with the constant back and forth because I knew exactly what month I'd see them next. I feel like I've been laying bread crumbs all these years and now someone has picked them up when I wasn't around.

Within the hour, it will be the new year, 2011. Every year I'm always so hopeful about it and excited, but then the night comes around and I realize that it doesn't really matter. It means nothing unless we make it mean something ourselves. No clock or countdown can make reality better or our lives easier. And yet...here we are; thrilled by the idea every single year that this one stroke at midnight will change everything. We're brainwashing ourselves, but really we can change our attitudes or change or actions in life anytime we wish.

I'm being such a downer but at this point in time I don't care. I don't understand how I can be so incredibly happy and still feel so lost. For the first time in my life I'm enjoying school, I have more than two amazing friends, and I'm doing something I'm passionate about all at the same time. Why does it feel like I'm still missing something?

Hold me tight enough that I don't fall apart at the airport terminal.

My 2011 ... List of Motivation

I realize that I have some time left until the end of the month and the start of a new year, however, I feel like I want to make a list of New Year Resolutions (gasp, can it be so?!). I've never been a fan of goal setting - goals in general make me unnecessarily angry, confused, and upset - probably because I have a fear of completion. It is for precisely that reason that I think, finally, I want to start anew. It's not that I want to forget anything this year, on the contrary I want to remember it all in order to make this next year even better. I deserve it. I see this now, I understand and I want more good things to continue to flow my way. So here it is, my goal list for 2011. (Yay, I didn't cringe at the word, or refuse to do my teacher's stupid goals for the year assignment...I knew I could do it [:  ) *These are in no particular order of importance.*

• Accept the madness that is my thinking process. Acknowledge that I make things far more complex than I probably should, but accept that sometimes its the best way for me to learn things correctly.
  
• Do not tell myself, "I don't deserve to be happy" or "I can have that experience later." This is an utter bullshit excuse Chanel Violet Caulfield, and I will not put up with your excuses any more.
  
• Do all assignments. It may be painful, but do it anyways.
  
• Have a mocha budget ... cut down to three mochas a week at the most. No more than three (unless I find change in my tootsie roll jar).
  
• Write two handwritten letters every month. It's always something I want to do, but never do.
  
• Challenge myself to take more photos. I miss spending every day with my camera, and while that may be inconvenient with my new schedule, there's no reason I can't spend one day a week learning more about my hobby.
  
• Library more. Bookstores less.
  
• Do more chores at the house. Make a serious effort to these little necessities, rather than television on those "ohmygoodness there's no commitment right now" nights.
  
• Speaking of commitments, don't over commit. There are many lovely things I want to do, but if I do too many things I will stop being lovely. I will turn to my caffeine addiction, get grumpy, lose sleep, lose patience, and possibly kill (the spirits of people, not kill people themselves).
  
• DO NOT FORGET why I started writing in the first place, why it is my passion, why I wanted to become a journalist and why that idea has been stuck in my head ever since. Do not forget the important creative ideas when thinking of the particular, detail driven ideas.
  
• Don't be embarrassed of myself, for whatever stupid reason. I am myself and that is that. It's been proven a few times that people think I'm a neat person, so stop second guessing what they may think. On that note....
  
• ...STOP TRYING TO CONTROL EVERYTHING.
  
• Fail. DO IT. Don't fail a class, or fail to maintain a promise; no. Fail at the stupid things that you think are really important but in the grand scheme of things aren't...
  
• ...loosen up.

Learning to Accept Rather than Reject.

One of the most difficult things for me is accepting money. Perhaps, it's because I hate feeling indebted to someone. Maybe it's because I've always been a sucker for guilt. Whatever the reason may be, it has proved to be very difficult to accept the green bills graciously. My mother keeps buying me little things, and why they may be necessities in the life of a "broke college student" (such as socks, clothing items, etc; or not necessary such as coffee) I feel oh so guilty. I've been reprimanded several times already for pushing away the spoiling affection from my mother. I'm sorry, Mom. It's difficult for me to accept gifts when I would much rather give them.

As a result, I've decided that my goal for this Christmas will be to ACCEPT IT, NOT REJECT IT.

• I will accept my mother's unnecessary spoiling.
• I will accept the cash that she hands me and I will continue to ask her for more (eek, my heels will not reluctantly dig into the ground) if I do not have enough to see friends.
• I will not fret if I don't get them gifts until the days after Christmas because its not that big of a deal.
• I will not think about all the things I have done wrong, because I'm here on Christmas vacation.
• I will eat as much food as I want to, whether it be healthy or not.
• I will allow myself days of sleeping in and not worry about the things that "need" to get done.
• I will relax and not think ill of the future.

In addition I'm going to try and make a Christmas list. Why "try" to make one? Well, I never know what to ask for. Usually, if I want something really special, I save up for it and buy it myself. So here it goes:

• Burts Bees chapstick.
• new ink pens
• memory card reader (although I might not wait that long. I'm in desperation to upload my photos already)
• (eighteen minutes later, not an exaggeration)...socks?...geez this shouldn't be difficult. I get back to this later.

Like An Impostor of My Childhood

I'm laying in my bed after seven months of moving away to Washington state. It's the same room I slept in since I was five and I feel rather odd being here. The furniture still remains but nothing else fills these empty shelves. The desk isn't cluttered with an array of papers, journals, doodles, and unsorted receipts. My dresser has no perfume, jewelry, or childhood collectibles on top of it anymore. There is a curious feeling I can't pinpoint that's associated with being in this white-walled shell of my childhood. It's only been seven months and already I feel like a different person; almost an impostor in my own home.

I have so many memories that I've thought about, just by laying in my bed right now. I can recount the sleepless nights, the afternoons wasted listening to music on my bed doodling rather than doing homework, the frustrations I cried over as a stupid thirteen year old, the happy feelings that derived from friendships and family, the hollow feeling I felt when a relationship didn't work out well and the lovely feelings when they did. Its striking how we can contain such an array of memories in an object or a place; I think its beautiful.

I've been awake for about twenty hours now because I took the Airporter bus at 2 a.m.. I hope I can adjust to this time zone quickly. One thing I have always loved about flying is the clouds and I took several photos of them with the snowy mountains today. I particularly love how the clouds look like a separate world and no one can touch them, they remain pure. I feel so small when I'm looking down at Earth but I could never ignore how beautiful and calming it is to look down at thousands of people in an instant. That's simply incredible. The earth looks like a slab of clay that goes on forever, molded and kneaded into mountains, rivers, valleys and plains.

On a different note, I hate it when you want to talk to someone but you are afraid of coming off like you're annoying. I don't know why but I can't help it. I hate how everything that should be fairly simple can be (or at least seem to be) complex.

I also think I have a tendency to run away from my problems, as if somehow it will actually help. Things don't disappear and I know this...but its easier when I can physically get away from everything for a while. School, despite how much I love college, has physically, emotionally, and mentally exhausted me as if its goal was to make me a raisin. I used to be so eager to learn and now I feel eager to do nothing but sleep.

Tomorrow I will be attending my mom's work Christmas party and I'm excited to dress up for it. I'm excited to continue eating this delicious food my (step)dad makes and I'm excited to see people I missed. I also plan on reading as many books as I possibly can before I head back to educational overload; I have a list of unnecessary book candy on my phone haha. Yea, book candy, in other words its candy for the nerdiness inside in book format....yeah that's all I can write for now. I'll try and keep this updated more.